Africa

Women farmers in rural Nepal. Credit: IFAD/Anwar Hossain

By Priti Shrestha and Navanita Sinha
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 26 2020 (IPS)

In an interview*, Bina Pradhan, an independent researcher, focuses on gender, macroeconomics and emerging issues of inequality.

She is affiliated with the Federation of Business and Professional Women, Nepal (FBPWN), and has been working on the promotion and advancement of women in enterprise development and trade, post-earthquake community reconstruction, and rebuilding people’s lives and livelihoods with a focus on sustainability.

In this interview, Ms. Pradhan shares her views on the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically on women and excluded groups in Nepal.

Q: As a feminist economist, what is your assessment of the COVID pandemic in Nepal?

A: COVID-19 is as much of a human and economic crisis as it a health crisis and we are beginning to see its socio- economic impacts in Nepal.

With the announcement of the lockdown and other restrictive measures, we see that both the demand and supply side have been affected; and sectors such as hospitality and tourism severely impacted. We are likely to see a significant rise in unemployment and poverty. Households that depend on remittances will be hit the hardest.

In Nepal, over the years, the primary and secondary sectors have not been contributing much to the economy as the tertiary sector. However, with the ongoing crisis, this sector is going to plummet resulting in serious setbacks to the progress that we have made in poverty reduction, income, health, education and living standards in the last 20-30 years.

Q: Do you think that women especially those from the excluded groups will be disproportionately affected by this pandemic? What is the emerging evidence pointing to?

A: Women are often an after-thought in a humanitarian crisis. In Nepal, we do not yet have data on how the pandemic is affecting women health-wise.

Our experience from the past humanitarian crisis – the 2015 earthquake in particular showed that whether the crisis is natural or manmade, women will be impacted more because of prevalent gender roles, their subordinate position in society and the patriarchal structure of our society.

Bina Pradhan

Women act as shock-absorbers of the household – when there is a shortage of food, women reduce their own consumption, so that there is more food for other household members, especially their children. In such situations, women’s unpaid work burden also goes up substantially, as women strategize their time to compensate for whatever is lost in the households.

When they are in paid employment, women are likely to be the first to be evicted during an economic crisis. We also need to recognize that due to prevalent occupational segregation, more than 70 per cent of health workers, social sector workers or care- givers are women. Therefore, on all fronts, women are much more vulnerable and are likely to be disproportionately affected.

Therefore, this crisis, whether in terms of health or violence or just the ability of households to sustain or recover their livelihoods will be substantially borne by women.

Q: What are your views on the Government of Nepal’s response to COVID thus far? What are some of the challenges that the Government is likely to face in rolling out these relief measures in the current federal context?

A: The relief package is announced but we are yet to see how it is rolled. There must be proper food aid and how it rolled out is important. There should be an orientation on the process to be followed in distribution or there will be no seriousness.

A message has to go to the most marginalized group of people, and it would be good to see a larger increase in relief for that group of women. There should be the implementing mechanism and the government’s commitment to take it seriously., but the delivery of this package will be a challenge.

Q: From a feminist lens, what should be the core elements of the policy response?

A: It is important to recognize that households are not just consumers but also as producers. In our analysis, we need to bring in a sharper focus on women’s work especially their unpaid and domestic work which includes their vital work in care and subsistence.

For this, we need a much more inclusive structure of development – which is not based on the dichotomy of paid and unpaid care work, but instead on a recognition of women’s unpaid work, and its contribution to the national economy.

Q: Given the far-reaching impact of COVID – what are the long-term measures that the Government needs to adopt?

A: I think the ongoing crisis is an opportunity for the Government to act considering the short and long-term impacts of these actions. The top priorities could be:

• The households as economic unit of production and consumption will be hit hardest by the ongoing crisis. Women were managing the remittance sent to households which resulted in improvements in development indicators like health and education. In this crisis too, they will continue to shoulder the burden of paid and unpaid work to recuperate households’ economy. So, it is important to consider household level cash transfer, especially to women.
• We need to focus on addressing the problem of unemployment, which has contributed to increased migration. With the ongoing crisis and its impact on the world economy, the Government should focus on sectors such as infrastructure to generate jobs that can absorb returnee migrants. Emphasis should be on tapping the different capacities and skills of the returnee migrants. This could also mean giving a financial stimulus through investment capital to migrant laborers; to help them establish start-up ventures in Nepal.
• Given the significant numbers of women in MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises, there is need for to financial packages to address the specific challenges of women in this sector. Further there should be continued focus on skill development and upgradation (including technical and managerial skills and non-traditional skills) to help them move their businesses from the micro-scale to small scale.
• The Government should engage with feminist economists or economists and ensure models of development are inclusive (of households); and create spaces for diverse voices and perspectives to be reflected in the planning and budgeting process.

*This was originally published in UN Women’s Weekly News Update

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, May 26 2020 (IPS)

With well over five million Covid-19 infections worldwide, and deaths exceeding 340,000, the race for an effective vaccine has accelerated since the SARS-Cov-2 virus was first identified as the culprit.

Expecting to score politically from being ‘first’ to have a vaccine, US President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed promises to get 300 million doses to Americans by January, after the November polls, following several failed attempts to monopolize vaccines being developed by European companies.

Anis Chowdhury

More than 115 vaccine development efforts are ongoing around the world. Eight human trials are underway, including five in China, with the most promising one government financed. Meanwhile, affordable access is the primary concern for most of the world.

Fighting epidemics together
Sixty-five years ago, Jonas Salk insisted that the polio vaccine he had developed remain patent free. Asked who owned the patent, he replied, “The people I would say. There is no patent. You might as well ask, could you patent the sun?”

Making vaccines and life-saving drugs available freely or affordably has been crucial for containing infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, polio and smallpox. Smallpox had a 30% mortality rate among those infected, and was responsible for 10% of the world’s blind.

In 1958, the Soviet Union urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to eradicate smallpox, offering funding for a plan. Surprising many, the US, already WHO’s major funder, agreed, resulting in the rivals’ most successful collaboration during the Cold War.

Smallpox was eradicated in 1977, following a WHO campaign seeking total eradication within a decade, launched in 1967, when there were over 2.5 million cases worldwide. However, the paltry budget approved by the WHA would not even have paid for the vaccines required.

The programme was launched in developing countries with vaccines donated by other countries including both Cold War rivals. Developing countries quickly developed vaccine producing and vaccination capabilities with generous technical assistance from abroad.

A people’s vaccine?
More than 140 world leaders and experts signed an open letter before the World Health Assembly (WHA) began on 18 May, calling on governments to commit to a ‘people’s vaccine’ against COVID-19, with all vaccines, treatments and tests patent-free, mass produced, fairly distributed and available to all, in every country, free of charge.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Leaders of Italy, France, Germany, Norway, the European Commission and Council urged that the vaccine be “produced by the world, for the whole world” as a “global public good of the 21st century”. President Xi promised that a China developed vaccine will be a “global public good”, with “accessibility and affordability in developing countries”, with President Macron pledging likewise.

The United Nations Secretary-General also emphasized that everybody must have access to the vaccine when available. The WHA unanimously acknowledged that vaccines, treatments and tests are global public goods, but was vague on implications.

Nevertheless, the US disassociated itself from over-riding patents in the interests of public health, objecting that it would send the “wrong message to innovators”. Both Johnson & Johnson and French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi have US government contracts to develop potential treatments, but the US Health and Human Services Secretary refuses to guarantee they will be affordable.

Earlier, the US did not join the 24 April world leaders’ pledge to increase cooperation against Covid-19, besides ignoring a 4 May pledge by international leaders and organizations to spend US$8 billion to make available a vaccine and treatments.

Contain China, not the pandemic
Unfortunately, three decades after the Cold War ended, the context is very different now, due to politics and profits. Trump’s ‘America first’ administration and some key allies seeking to check China fear that Beijing’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis has boosted its already fast rising standing.

By April, the US and its allies were blaming China for the pandemic due to the “Chinese virus”. Trump upped the ante on 27 April by threatening retaliatory measures against China for billions of dollars of damages worldwide, claiming that China could have stopped the epidemic at source, but did not.

Offering no evidence, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also accused ‘China-affiliated’ hackers of trying to steal intellectual property (IP) for Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and testing. Meanwhile, some US states, politicians and companies have also filed lawsuits against China for damages.

All this has also undermined the WHO, now depicted as China’s puppet. POTUS’s tough letter to the Director-General demanded “substantive”, but unspecified “improvements” at the WHO within 30 days, threatening to permanently end already suspended US funding and to quit altogether.

‘America first’ vs global public interest
With elections less than half a year away, Trump’s recent rhetoric and policies appear preoccupied with boosting his re-election prospects, slipping due to his handling of the outbreak.

Unsurprisingly, international concerns over US control of an effective Covid-19 vaccine have grown. German weekly, Die Welt am Sonntag reported in March that POTUS had offered German biotech company, CureVac about US$1 billion for exclusive access to the vaccine it is developing.

Earlier this month, Sanofi hastily backed down after the French Prime Minister insisted that access for all was “non-negotiable” following the CEO’s 13 May announcement that the US government had “the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk” despite French government support for Sanofi worth hundreds of millions of euros.

Profits vs public interest
Only a few giant companies can develop and produce a vaccine from start to finish, due to the expense and range of expertise required. Historically, most vaccines have been developed in the North, often reaching the South much later.

During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, some OECD governments contracted with pharmaceutical giants to monopolize the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. After developing a promising Zika vaccine in 2017, the US Army assigned production rights to Sanofi, but the deal fell through following profiteering charges by US watchdog organizations and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Despite enjoying the patent system’s extended monopolies, at the expense of public health, limited prospects for lucrative profits have generally discouraged investments to develop affordable medicines and vaccines for developing countries.

What can be done
Some pharmaceutical giants, e.g., Glaxo-Smith-Kline and Sanofi, claim they do not expect to profit from the Covid-19 vaccine. But such recent industry promises not to profiteer from making the vaccine globally available are hard to reconcile with the record that drug research and development has long been driven by the prospect of massive profits.

Such firms have been urged to make the Open Covid pledge to voluntarily relinquish their IP rights (IPRs), at least until the Covid-19 pandemic is over. But Oxfam fears this may not be enough. As Big Pharma has long enjoyed massive government subsidies, national authorities can enforce the pledge.

Governments can also use ‘compulsory licencing’, permitted by World Trade Organization rules, to enable companies that do not have the IPRs, to make, manufacture and sell generic versions of patented medicines only for national sale, as the Bush administration did with Tamiflu a decade and a half ago in the face of the Avian flu threat.

 

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The government is to ease lockdown restrictions and allow the sale of alcohol - but not cigarettes.

At least 54 percent of sexually active adolescent women in Kenya who would like to postpone pregnancy have an unmet need for modern contraception. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, May 25 2020 (IPS)

It was only when 17-year-old Eva Muigai was in her final trimester that her family discovered she was pregnant. Muigai, a form three student who lives with her family in Gachie, Central Kenya, had spent her pregnancy wearing tight bodysuits and loose-fitting clothes that hid her growing baby bump.

“The plan was to have an abortion but I was too scared. My classmate had an abortion last year and she almost died, so I kept postponing the abortion.

“I gathered courage at five months and my cousin took me to a man who does abortions at the shopping centre. He refused to do the abortion because he preferred pregnancies that were not older than three months,” Muigai tells IPS.

Muigai says that one day, while seven months pregnant, she “just fainted and my mother tried to loosen my clothes so that I could get more air”.

“It then became clear that I was pregnant,” she recalls.

Last month, two weeks shy of her due date, Muigai was rushed to hospital with severe abdominal cramps. The attending doctor rushed Muigai into theatre for an emergency caesarian section.

Her newborn baby did not survive.

Last week, Muigai was re-admitted to hospital with further complications after first experiencing swelling in her stomach and then her entire body.

“Complications of pregnancy and child birth are a leading cause of preventable deaths and ill health among adolescent women, aged 15 to 19 years, in Kenya,” Angela Nguku, executive director of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, Kenya, tells IPS.

The alliance has been at the forefront of advocating for adolescent health and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and is a Deliver For Good partner organisation in Kenya.

• Deliver For Good is a “global campaign that applies a gender lens to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and promotes 12 critical investments in girls and women to power progress for all”. Powered by Women Deliver, a global advocacy organisation that champions gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women, more than 400 organisations have joined the Deliver for Good Campaign.

Tamara Windau-Melmer, a senior manager for Youth Engagement at Women Deliver, says that adolescent girls are often left behind because the policies, programmes, and investments meant to serve them are not designed in an inclusive, gender-responsive way.

“Adolescent girls must be meaningfully and authentically engaged in decision-making about their own lives, especially as it pertains to information about and access to contraception,” she tells IPS.

• According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), adolescent mothers face higher risks of eclampsia, uterine infection and systemic infections than women aged 20 to 24 years.
• Babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm delivery and severe neonatal conditions.

“Additionally, comprehensive sexuality education is critical as it offers the opportunity to reach adolescent girls with important information and skills to take control of their lives and pursue a brighter future for themselves, their families, and their communities,” Windau-Melmer says.

But the provision of comprehensive sex education in Kenya remains a hotly-contested issue by religious leaders, who hold great sway on such matters, and it is yet to be rolled out in line with National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health policy.

Nguku says that despite a 2012 government commitment to provide affordable and accessible high quality reproductive health services to adolescents, this promise remains on paper in the form of the National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health policy.

“The policy was updated in 2015 so that adolescents can have accurate, timely information and quality services but adolescent women still have many unmet needs,” she says.

• Adolescent women in Kenya account for an estimated one-fifth of the female population of over 26 million, and account for approximately 14 percent of all births, according to the most recent Kenya Demographic and Health Survey. 
• Statistics by the Guttmacher Institute, a leading global research organisation, show that 63 percent of pregnancies among adolescents in Kenya are unintended, as was the case with Muigai. 35 percent of these unintended pregnancies are aborted. 

But research by the Guttmacher Institute shows that at least 54 percent of sexually active adolescent women in this East African nation who would like to postpone pregnancy have an unmet need for modern contraception.

• The institute’s research further shows that satisfying the unmet need for modern contraceptives among adolescent women in Kenya would result in a 73 percent drop in unintended pregnancies. Currently, adolescent women account for an estimated 86 percent of all unintended pregnancies in the country. 
• Further, the Guttmacher Institute shows that a combination of modern contraceptives for all adolescents who need it, and adequate care for all pregnant adolescents and their newborns, would reduce adolescent maternal deaths by 76 percent. Currently maternal deaths stand at 450 per year.

Georgina Nyambura, the founder of Umoja Women Mobile Health Care, a registered, community-based organisation with over 6,000 members across the country, says that stigma and discrimination remain barriers to adolescent women seeking SRHR services. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

These grim statistics pale in comparison to the country’s impressive progress toward the increased uptake of modern contraceptives.

At the end of the 2012 Family Planning Summit in London, where governments and donors committed to ensure more women and girls could access modern family planning by 2020, Kenya committed to increasing the uptake of modern contraceptives by married women to 58 percent. 

By 2017, Kenya surpassed the set target, increasing the uptake of modern contraceptives for all women by a third. Statistics by the Ministry of Health show that contraceptive usage for all women now stands at 61 percent. But for adolescent women this usage stands at 40 percent.

As a result, nearly one in every five teenage girls has either had a live birth or is pregnant with their first child, according to the Ministry of Health.

“Our society is very religious and even where policies allow young girls to access all the sexual and reproductive health services all women are entitled to, the situation is very different on the ground,” says Georgina Nyambura, the founder of Umoja Women Mobile Health Care, a registered, community-based organisation with over 6,000 members across the country.

“It is a common saying that girls are more afraid of pregnancy and, therefore, evidence that they are having sex, than of HIV.”

• In Kenya, nearly half of new HIV infections occur among the country’s youth aged 15 to 24 years.

To address fears of stigma and discrimination towards adolescent women, Nyambura urges the government and actors in the health sector to re-evaluate the manner in which this cohort access services, including information on sexuality.

However, the current coronavirus pandemic is expected to reverse any gains that have already been made. Kenya has reported some 1,214 COVID-19 cases. The country has been in a nationwide lockdown since April, with a nighttime curfew still in place and schools and religious centres closed.

“A health pandemic such as COVID-19 will only widen the existing gap between adolescent women and all the SRHR services that they need. Human and financial resources have now been directed into fighting this health crisis.

“On the other hand, people themselves will only come to the hospital now if it is a matter of life and death. Pandemics affect our health service seeking behaviours and patterns,” Grace Kanini, a nurse at one of the country’s referral hospitals, tells IPS.

However, adolescent health challenges informed the government’s family planning commitments made in 2017 during the second Family Planning Summit in London.

Two of the three revised government commitments on family planning target adolescent women. 

• The first commitment is to scale up contraceptive uptake from 61 percent to 66 percent for all women by 2030.
• The second commitment is to increase contraceptive prevalence rate among adolescent women from 40 to 50 percent by 2020, and to 55 percent by 2025.
• And a further commitment to reduce teenage pregnancy among adolescent women from 18 to 12 percent by 2020, and to 10 percent by 2025.

For the first seven months of her pregnancy, while she was hiding it from her family, Muigai did not have a single antenatal care checkup. And she is not an anomaly.

According to the Ministry of Health, 51 percent of pregnant adolescents have fewer than the four essential antenatal care visits recommended by the WHO, and 33 percent do not give birth in a health facility. 

Nguku says that the government will need to invest more into family planning programmes that target this cohort.

Fully meeting contraception, maternal and newborn health care needs for adolescents across the country would cost an estimated 89 million dollars each year.

But not meeting these needs will cost an estimated 114 million dollars annually, of which 63 million dollars would go to care related to unintended pregnancies, says the Guttmacher Institute.

The scenario speaks true to Muigai’s situation.

An ‘A’ student with dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon, she now lays in a referral hospital receiving medical treatment. 

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The post Kenya’s Adolescent Women Left Behind As More Married Women Access Contraception appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Complications of pregnancy and child birth are a leading cause of preventable deaths and ill health among adolescent women in Kenya. But research shows a combination of modern contraceptives for all adolescents who need it, and adequate care for all pregnant adolescents and their newborns, would reduce adolescent maternal deaths by 76 percent. So what needs to be done to prevent this?

The post Kenya’s Adolescent Women Left Behind As More Married Women Access Contraception appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Students learn with tablets in a school in South Africa. Credit: AMO/Jackie Clausen

By External Source
May 25 2020 (IPS)

Many well meaning education benefactors and commentators in South Africa have expressed that in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic online self-guided learning could solve some of the current teaching problems and address the educational backlog. What learners need, the reasoning goes, is to get free internet access to educational support materials on offer online.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, self-guided online learning is doomed to fail. Research shows an exceptionally high drop-out rate – even in developed countries. Learners simply have no incentive to keep at their studies without peer pressure, a teacher at hand or a structured learning environment.

In South Africa in particular, with socio-economic disparities and related problems, the drop-out rate would be even higher. More so in key subjects like mathematics and physical science where prior knowledge, conceptual understanding and self-motivation to succeed are critical.

Self-guided online learning is doomed to fail. Research shows an exceptionally high drop-out rate – even in developed countries. Learners simply have no incentive to keep at their studies without peer pressure, a teacher at hand or a structured learning environment

The only answer, in the country’s unequal teaching environment, is a customised version of blended learning. Blended learning integrates computer-assisted online activities with traditional face-to-face teaching (chalk-and-talk).

When used by a trained teacher, this approach can add valuable new dimensions to the learning process. It can allow learners to work at their own pace and teachers to fill content gaps.

 

Blended learning in South Africa

In many developed countries, blended learning is a well-established practice. It has enabled these countries to adapt to the demands of the current pandemic. Digital remote learning and teaching is backed up by dependable infrastructure and skilled, motivated teachers.

By contrast, the differences between South African schools have been thrown into sharp relief. The binary system of a privileged minority of schools and the rest remains, despite the political changes more than 25 years ago.

More than 80% of public schools are under-resourced. They are ill-equipped to respond to the teaching and learning challenges of the 21st century – let alone the latest demands of the pandemic.

The current lockdown has suddenly compelled teachers to adopt predominantly online, blended learning teaching practices. But nearly 90% of all households in South Africa are still without access to the internet at home. Very few schools had adapted to blended learning before lockdown and few schools would be able to adopt it during the lockdown. Therefore the schools that had fewer resources and skills will fall even further behind.

This is especially disappointing since the current cohort of pupils (born after 2000) have long expressed their preference for a blended learning model. Even the recent recognition by the South African government that science, technology, engineering and mathematics are important in the Fourth Industrial Revolution has had little effect on the skills development of teachers, infrastructure or modernisation of resources in schools.

Therefore, in the South African context, mainstream blended learning is not the complete answer. We need to go beyond blended learning.

 

Customised blended learning model

Since 2002, the Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Centre in Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth has wrestled with these challenges.

The bad news is that there’s no way to make the teaching and learning of maths and science easy. But we’ve developed a number of interventions that have lifted the twin burdens of poor training and lack of infrastructure from the shoulders of teachers. Skills development linked to the use of user-friendly and interactive digital resources has allowed teachers to focus on attaining a high quality of teaching with subsequent learning successes.

Over the past decade, the centre has experimented with various combinations of online and offline self-directed teaching methods. It has worked specifically on blended learning for mathematics and physical sciences in secondary schools.

The greatest success has been a blended learning system that uses a combination of online and offline interactive resources with pre-installed apps that are aligned with the South African school curriculum. These can be used as a guide for teaching, home-schooling, after-school study and tutoring. We call it techno-blended learning: a structured approach, using mostly offline apps in an integrated way, with the full participation of a trained or experienced adult mentor or guide.
One of the centre’s more recent interventions is a mini personal computer called the GammaTutor™. This’s an offline device pre-loaded with interactive learning material. These resources have been specifically designed for South African school conditions.

 

The GammaTutor: a tutor in your pocket.

 

The GammaTutor™ software package is primarily intended for teachers: when plugged into any data projector, a TV or digital screen, it doubles as a flexible maths and science teaching assistant in the classroom and a learner support resource for after school hours. It fits in the palm of a hand, requires no data and is navigated by the click of a mouse. Its small size makes the device easy to keep safe and to take where it’s needed.

 

What needs to be done

It’s well known that major educational challenges exist in schools as a result of the country’s multi-language society – particularly in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The GammaTutor™ application offers mathematics concept explanations in eight indigenous languages.

The device covers the full curriculum for high school maths and physical sciences, presented in video, PDF or animated PowerPoint format – along with glossaries, exam revision support, translations from English into indigenous languages and many additional teaching support materials. It can be used for interactive teaching online and remotely.

The response from teachers, learners and stakeholders to this approach of teaching and learning has been overwhelmingly positive. Where these interventions have been applied, in pilot schools in the Eastern Cape province, the results have been gratifying. Marks have improved significantly and successful learners have been able to progress to university.

The new urgency for remote teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for the country to adopt policies to accelerate blending learning practices among teachers and learners. The Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Centre offers lessons learned through more than a decade of research.

Werner Olivier, Professor in Mathematics and Director: Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Centre, Nelson Mandela University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The image shows the countries from which remittance flows to Bangladesh, a service that is severely affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

By Star Online Report
May 25 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The UK and Switzerland are calling for greater global collaboration to ensure access to digital remittance services to support people during the coronavirus outbreak.

Such remittance accounts for more than five percent of the GDP in at least sixty developing countries. The World Bank predicts remittances to low- and middle-income countries will fall by 20 percent or $110 billion in 2020.

In a joint press statement, the two European countries said it is important to make sure diaspora communities around the world can continue to send financial support to their families.

The call is important for Bangladesh. A country that heavily depends on migrant remittance, which was $18 billion last year and is likely to decline by 22 percent this year. Also, several lakh Bangladeshi migrants may return home after facing job losses, while those aspiring to find jobs abroad may also not see the dream come true any time soon.

The joint statement issued on Friday highlighted the urgent need for people to be able to continue accessing money transfer services, and for governments to make sure those funds reach those relying on this support.

Both UK and Switzerland are also urging countries to support greater access to digital remittance services and to declare remittances an essential financial service. They are also encouraging remittance service providers to reduce costs and fees for people making payments.

Money sent by individuals to family and friends living in low- and middle-income countries totaled $554bn in 2019 and is a vital lifeline in many developing countries, boosting economic development and lifting people out of poverty.

But coronavirus is already having a big impact, with a drop in the wages of migrant workers and coronavirus restrictions making it more difficult for people to access money transfer services.

A drop in remittance would have a severe impact on countries where many people are already facing destitution and even starvation as a result of the huge economic impact of the pandemic.

UK’s International Development Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said, “The coronavirus pandemic means we are all concerned about how our family and friends here and overseas are coping. That’s why we’re making it easier for diaspora communities in the UK and other countries to continue to transfer money to their relatives.”

“This will be lifesaving for some families in developing countries where coronavirus is making a lack of food and healthcare, and extreme poverty, even worse. We are helping to prevent fragile economies from facing potential collapse during the pandemic.”

Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs added.

“Remittances are important, but difficult because of COVID-19. So, let’s make sure those barriers are removed worldwide! New technologies can help us here.”

The joint call was backed by partners, including the World Bank, the UN Capital Development Fund, UN Development Programme and the International Organisation for Migration. A number of countries have already joined, including Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The UK government has made it clear that in the UK people can continue to visit remittance centres should they need to, while observing social distancing and staying safe. Digital money transfer services are also available.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Excerpt:

UK and Switzerland say in a joint statement

The post ‘Declare remittance as an essential financial service’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Human development backslides, education at global levels ‘not seen since the 1980s’ Young girl in Uruguay uses her laptop to study at home. Credit: UNDP Uruguay/Pablo La Rosa

By Saida Ali
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 25 2020 (IPS)

When I was a little girl, my mother told us the story of a woman who escaped from a monster by cooking stones: when the monster fell asleep waiting for his dinner, the woman ran for her life.

I thought of this tale when I read last month about Peninah Bahati Kitsao, a Kenyan widow who boiled stones in the hope of lulling her eight children to sleep. In Peninah’s case, the monster was hunger and poverty.

Shocked and saddened, Kenyans took to social media to call for help for her, but just a week later, Peninah’s four-month-old baby died. Unlike my mother’s story, unfortunately, there will be no escape from the monster for Peninah and millions of people like her, unless the world agrees to take action – and quickly.

For widowed women such as Peninah, the convergence of gendered norms and social and economic inequalities has always determined what befalls them: in the past, during the coronavirus crisis, and doubtless after the pandemic ends.

The multiple inequalities that she and so many other marginalised people face are not new phenomena: COVID-19 has merely placed them in the spotlight. These are the inequalities that have been the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for the past five years.

When governments around the world adopted the SDGs’ 17 global goals and 169 targets in September 2015, they pledged to end poverty and food insecurity, protect the planet and ensure that no one would be left behind in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity by 2030.

These 17 ambitious goals were to be at the heart of a revitalized global partnership built on the spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable. But as the COVID-19 pandemic grips the planet, the threat of a collapsing global economy has further slowed the limited progress that has been made on achieving these goals – to the point where the 2030 vision now looks more like a mirage than a roadmap.

In Niger, 1.6 million vulnerable children are affected by humanitarian crises, including border closures and COVID-19 containment measures.

As the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis continues to wreak havoc across the world – with the most vulnerable suffering the most – the UN chief said on last week that the task of eradicating poverty and achieving the development goals “has never been more challenging, more urgent and more necessary”. Credit: UNICEF/Juan Haro

Even long before the pandemic, it was clear that these goals would be challenging to achieve. Before the finalisation and adoption of the 2030 Agenda, feminists and civil society organisations participating in the negotiations were raising red flags when they realised that the implementation of the global goals would be undermined by the lack of will on the part of governments around the world to financing its development agenda and committing to the systemic, structural change essentials to tackling the roots of extreme poverty, economic inequality and the rising concentration of wealth.

COVID-19 crisis aside, what global inequality has shown us is that international economic governance is skewed in favour of developed countries. While we know that the populations and economies of many developed countries have been hard hit by the pandemic, we must not forget that even in the time of COVID-19, the extraction of financial and non-financial resources from the global South to the global North carries on unabated.

As inequalities scholar Branko Milanovic observes in his book The Haves and the Have Nots, wealth has been unevenly spread throughout the world for many centuries, and where you are born largely determines your wealth and opportunities in life.

These determinants are key factors in the financial commitments that have been made to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda by the world’s governments. And even the commitments made before the pandemic were not sufficient: the shortfall in the funding needed to achieve SDGs in developing countries is now estimated to be $2.5 to $3 trillion per year.

This comes on top of the shortfall in financing for development more generally, with many wealthy nations failing to meet their obligation of 0.7% of their gross national income to official development assistance (ODA).

We do not yet know the full toll that COVID-19 will take on humanity – but the signs are deeply troubling. Research by the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) warns of an increase in global poverty by as much as half a billion people, or 8% of the total human population.

This will not only set us back to the poverty levels of the early 1990s, but also means that our ability to achieve the SDGs is under immense threat. New analysis from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has also pointed to the consequences of the pandemic on women’s and girls’ health and exercise of rights.

The global projections shared by UNFPA are mind-blowing: for every three months that the COVID-19 continues, up to 2 million more women will go without access to modern contraceptives, there will be an additional 15 million cases of gender-based violence, and over the next decade, 2 million additional female genital mutilation cases and 13 million additional child marriages will occur – all of which could have been averted. We can already see the reversal of decades on gains in women’s rights.

COVID-19 is amplifying deep-seated gender inequalities, but we must remember that in pre-pandemic times we had barely shifted the needle on the status of millions of people in precarious, informal work.

Peninah Bahati Kitsao was a laundry lady before social distancing policies meant that she and millions more domestic workers lost their incomes, and those whose work was already undervalued and underpaid and for whom food insecurity was a daily reality were pushed even further away from the world envisioned by the 17 global goals.

In their worldwide pledge to “leave no one behind”, the global goals explicitly intended to address the rights and needs of people such as Peninah: the people least often heard and already furthest behind.

Achieving the SDGs always required explicit, concrete steps to end extreme poverty, curb inequalities, confront discrimination and fast-track progress for the hundreds of millions who need it most – and COVID-19 has not changed this requirement. Around the world, the calls for concerted action are increasing.

As part of its Economic Rescue Plan for All, Oxfam is urging both immediate debt cancellation for poor countries, and direct help via cash grants to people such as Peninah. Feminists led by AWID (the Association for Women’s Rights in Development) are rallying behind a campaign for bailouts for people such as Peninah, including domestic workers, sex workers, undocumented workers, underpaid and unpaid care workers, migrant workers, seasonal agricultural workers, and all those whose work is essential to our societies.

Feminist economists remind us that contradictions and crises are a constant feature of financialised capitalism and the system rides on the backs of the poor.

One of the most important lessons from Peninah Bahati Kitsao’s terrible, preventable anguish is that without addressing gender inequality, the SDGs’ promise of equitable social development will not be fulfilled.

Her story underscores the fact that women and girls comprise the majority of those living in poverty, experience persistent and multi-dimensional inequalities, and bear the brunt of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

Discrimination, place of residence, socio-economic status, governance and vulnerability – all factors identified by the United Nations Development Program – are why Peninah and her countless sisters around the world in precarious jobs, with no access to family planning or education, have always been left behind.

We will never build a better world until we all step up to do battle with the monster of hunger and inequality that took Peninah’s child.

 

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The post Are the SDGs in Reverse Gear? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Saida Ali is an intersectional feminist and international policy analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya, and an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity. She tweets at @SaidaAaliyah

The post Are the SDGs in Reverse Gear? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Some medics have refused to work and elderly people have been dying, writes Zeinab Mohammed Salih.

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By External Source
May 24 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In the context of COVID-19 crisis, what are the risks for climate action?

Climate change still continues and climate impacts are still very visible in the Pacific. A few weeks ago, we had major forest fires in Australia and in other countries. Now we’re battling tropical cyclone Harold which is a result of climate change. This week a new study was released, pointing out that the great barrier reef in Australia suffered one of its most severe bleaching in 5 years. Climate change is still happening, so climate actions have to be pursued. People might have different priorities these days, with funding being reoriented to other activities, but the action definitely needs to be continued to strengthen the resilience of our systems to global changes.

How is the crisis changing the way CCES works?

First, we had to revisit all of our projects and programs and develop contingency plans. For a lot of our activities, that means postponing, delaying, suspending some of the missions and travels. Workshops have to be reprogrammed. There’s a lot of anticipation and planning work going on. We are also anticipating: developing terms of reference, tender documents – In fact, getting ready for when activities pick up again. We are also keeping everybody informed, with the Pacific Territories Regional Project for Sustainable Ecosystem Management (PROTEGE) for example. We’re sending newsletters, reaching out all the partners via Skype and videoconferencing. We will have a regional steering committee next week by videoconference. Things are happening, a bit differently, but they’re happening: contingency planning, anticipating and still going on, and we are working hard to meet the needs of our members.

How do you manage to keep the work going?

Like all of the divisions and teams at SPC, we’ve been relying a lot more on IT solutions. I would like to acknowledge the work of the IT team at SPC. They’ve been outstanding in getting us ready for that. When the confinement started, we were all ready. [We’ve faced] minimum problems as far as I can tell in terms of reaching out and working together. We’re also paying a lot more attention to people, making sure that no one is left behind – These are the values of SPC and of the Pacific as well. We’re making sure everybody is ok, we try to reach out to everyone, both as a team, and as an organization.

How will global climate action look like in 2020?

It will look different for sure. The climate change year is punctuated with a lot of international events, conferences, and that helps advance the negotiations and the decision-making processes. All of these conferences have been postponed: the One Planet Summit, the Ocean Conference, the IUCN congress and now the COP26 postponed to 2021. The first thing that is happening is a lot of logistics, with the need for reorganizing and reprogramming all of these big events and conferences.

Secondly, a lot of things are still happening. We are currently submitting all of the contributions for the ocean and climate call for submission. A lot of things are happening online as well. And a major virtual ocean and climate conference is being organized for early June.

What will happen after the crisis ends?

With that crisis, there are a lot of things that are going to be changing as well at the international level. There’s a greater understanding now that things are global, and that climate change is a global issue, just as COVID-19. We have to address it together. We have this communality, this multilateralism that I hope will be stronger. We’re also looking now at a more systemic type of approach. Climate change, like COVID-19, has to be treated in a systemic way, looking at job uncertainties as well as financial risk and food security. Climate change will have to have a more systemic approach looking at all these issues.

My final point is the capacity to adapt, which is proper to climate change: we’re talking about climate change adaptation and mitigation. We have to make sure that we build the systems and the infrastructures to adapt to shocks and crisis. This is the case now with COVID-19, and it’s going to be the case tomorrow with climate change. We have to strengthen the resilience of our systems, including ecosystems, and of our infrastructure to build a more resilient system for the Pacific, and the rest of the world.

Division
Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability (CCES)

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Mexico's state-run oil giant Pemex faces a difficult outlook due to the fall in international oil prices and the crisis resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, which threatens its production and finances, in a situation analysed during the 29th La Jolla Energy Conference, organised online by the Institute of the Americas. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 22 2020 (IPS)

While it attempts to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Latin American and Caribbean region also faces concerns about the future of the energy transition and state-owned oil companies.

These questions were discussed at the 29th La Jolla Energy Conference, organised by the Institute of the Americas. It was held online May 18-22, rather than bringing together more than 50 speakers at the institute’s headquarters in the coastal district of San Diego, in the U.S. state of California, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alfonso Blanco of Uruguay, executive secretary of the Latin American Energy Organisation (OLADE), said during a session on global trends and the regional energy industry that the changes seen during the pandemic will spread after the crisis and will be long-lasting.

“There will be structural transformations and we are convinced that most consumer behaviors will change after the pandemic. Demand will vary due to changes in the main areas of transportation and other energy areas. The effects on fossil fuel consumption will be strong and there will be a greater impact on renewable energies,” he said.

OLADE, a 27-member regional intergovernmental organisation for energy coordination, estimates that electricity demand has fallen by 29 percent in Bolivia compared to 2019, as a result of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, and by 26 percent in Argentina, 22 percent in Brazil and 11 percent in Chile."There will be structural transformations and we are convinced that most consumer behaviors will change after the pandemic. Demand will vary due to changes in the main areas of transportation and other energy areas. The effects on fossil fuel consumption will be strong and there will be a greater impact on renewable energies." -- Alfonso Blanco

Likewise, final energy demand plummeted 14 percent in Brazil compared to 2019, 11 percent in both the Andean and Southern Cone regions, nine percent in Mexico, seven percent in Central America and five percent in the Caribbean.

As countries went into lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, electricity consumption by businesses and factories declined, due to the suspension of activities.

Leonardo Sempertegui, legal advisor to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said the pandemic may be a wake-up call for countries lagging behind in the energy transition.

“This may be the new normal. The structure and governance of the energy architecture to cope with the next phase are changing dramatically. Energy poverty and the energy transition cannot be solved regardless of who controls a resource; these challenges cannot wait,” he said in the same session.

In Latin America, nations like Argentina, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras and Uruguay have made progress in the energy transition since 2015, while Brazil has slid backwards and countries like Mexico are stuck in the same place, according to the World Economic Forum’s Energy Transition Index, released May 13.

As the region heads into the fourth month of the pandemic, countries are assessing their electricity markets, which have been shaken by the crisis.

Nations like Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru have resorted to long-term electricity auctions, which have generated low prices for renewables, while Mexico suspended such schemes in 2019.

In Argentina, as Andrés Chambouleyron, a non-resident fellow at the Institute of the Americas, explained, industrial consumption fell by 50 percent and electricity distributors have not been able to obtain sufficient revenues to cover fixed costs or electricity purchases.

The government has thus provided financing to Cammesa – the electricity wholesale market administration company – to pay the generators, since it is bound by contracts to buy the energy.

“There will be a permanent change in electricity consumption in Argentina. We have cheaper gas than before; the models say that you have to use more gas because it is cheaper than other sources. We won’t see much change in Argentina’s energy mix, and that could extend to all of Latin America,” said Chambouleyron, who warned of breach of and renegotiation of contracts for energy purchases.

Low oil prices threaten to slow down the energy transition in Latin America, although renewable energies already compete with the costs of fossil fuels, agreed experts at the 29th La Jolla Energy Conference, organised online by the Institute of the Americas. The photo shows solar panels on a house in Ajijic, in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

While renewables are already competing in price with conventional sources, low oil and gas prices undermine their expansion, a predicament that alternative energy sources have been facing in recent years.

In addition, the rise in the cost of international credit and the fluctuations of the dollar against local currencies may make generation more expensive.

In another session on the outlook for state-owned oil companies, Marta Jara, former president of Uruguay’s public oil company ANCAP, said the current crisis could accelerate the transition, but called it a “major challenge”.

“The temptation is to be opportunistic and forget the roadmap of the energy transition. We must invest in sustainable energy systems, decarbonise transport. It is important to secure funding and create jobs. I hope the crisis opens the door to be more innovative,” she said.

Viable or not?

The plunge in fossil fuel prices is damaging the finances of the region’s oil producing countries, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, and state companies in the sector are facing problems with regard to planning and operations.

But it benefits net importers, like the countries of Central America or Chile, whose oil bills have shrunk, while for consumers in both oil producing and importing countries the cost of electricity could go down.

“The most competitive will be the countries with lower oil extraction costs. Some projects will not be economically viable. We will see greater economic problems than in 2019,” predicted Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy, Climate Change and Extractive Industries Programme at the non-governmental Inter-American Dialogue, during a panel on the situation in several Caribbean nations.

The pandemic and a rise in Saudi production announced on Mar. 10 led to a collapse in oil prices and the consequent risk of bankruptcies in the industry. State-owned oil companies have fared better than others so far in the crisis.

In another session on the outlook for state-owned oil companies, John Padilla, managing director of the private consulting firm IPD Latin America, stated that “it will take time to get out of this situation, with effects for the region, and the need for great efficiency.

“Most nations have been exporters, efficiency will be the key. What has not been done is to cultivate domestic and regional markets, state enterprises are not going to play the same role as they always have,” he said.

Public companies such as Brazil’s Petrobras and Colombia’s Ecopetrol entered the crisis in a better position than Mexico’s Pemex, Venezuela’s PDVSA and Argentina’s YPF, according to experts.

“These are difficult times, even for the best prepared. We can hope that if the country and its company are in trouble, if governments need money, they can get more out of the companies,” said Francisco Monaldi, interim director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy’s Latin America Initiative at the private Rice University in the U.S. state of Texas.

In his view, “Mexico is in better fiscal conditions, it should not be a problem. But Pemex can drag Mexico down. If the government doesn’t change direction, it could become a serious problem,” he said as an example.

Although Pemex will increase its investment in 2020, the oil company reported losses of 20 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year. Due to the crisis, Petrobras limited its investment to 3.5 billion dollars and its daily production to 200,000 barrels, and postponed the sale of eight refineries.

For Lucas Aristizábal, a senior director in Fitch Ratings’ Latin American corporates group, some state-owned oil companies are viable and others are not.

“In 2021, the financial contribution of oil will be lower for governments. If they want the companies to play a key role, they will put more pressure on their financial structure. The current situation illustrates the economics of these corporations,” he said during the forum.

Pemex and YPF were already losing money per barrel in 2019, while Petrobras has more balanced production costs.

On the oil horizon, and in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, Guyana has become the rising star, although there is still political uncertainty, as the result of the Mar. 2 presidential elections is still unclear.

“It’s hard to predict what will happen. There is a risk of U.S. sanctions that would not affect investment in the sector, but would pose a political risk to the country,” said Thomas Singh, in the Department of Economics at the public University of Guyana.

The country expects to extract 600,000 barrels per day by 2024 and take in revenues of five billion dollars, with reserves exceeding five billion barrels.

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